


Night Watchman

by clood



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: 5+1 Things, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Pining, but also it's kind of mutual, we have a lot of thoughts here, what is dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25703119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clood/pseuds/clood
Summary: Gon has nightmares and Killua saves him from them.(aka five times Killua was there to save Gon from himself and one time he wasn't)
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 14
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

It starts one night in Heavens Arena.

You’re asleep in this massive bed with sheets that swallow you up in a 1000-thread-count cocoon, dreaming of mountains of chocorobos while the AC hums quietly in the dark. You haven’t slept this well since you were stuck in that room during the exam after Leorio gambled away so much of your time and you’re not quite sure what that says about you.

You’re awake, now, having been jolted away from your hoard of chocolates by the sound of the en-suite telephone ringing. It’s a shrill cry that probably should have sent your heart into a frantic rhythm, only you’ve been trained in sleep deprivation since you were a child. 

Instead, you are annoyed and groggy as you snatch the receiver from the base and bring it up to your cheek, cool and solid in your hand. You glance at the red numbers glowing from the clock on the bedside table and confirm your suspicions, it’s nearly four in the morning. 

“Gon, I swear to god—” you start, huffing into the mouthpiece. You’re cut off by the sound of labored breathing on the other end, shuddery breaths and failed attempts to swallow a lump in a throat. “What’s wrong? What do you need?”

You’re suddenly on edge, running through the thousands of simulations in your head that could lead to a distraught Gon calling you in the middle of the night. Did those goons with the weird outfits try to attack during the night? Is Hisoka creeping in some corner of Gon’s room, waiting for an opportunity to be even creepier?

“Bad…” Gon whispers. 

_Bad?_

Your brain is working in double time. Okay, this is worse than you thought. You need to get up and get to his room like, _now_. Clearly there’s something horribly wrong. You’re about to slam down the phone and run down the hall when his voice comes through again. 

“Bad dream.” Gon says finally. “I’m sorry, Killua. I don’t know why I called.”

“You had a bad dream?” you almost shout into the phone. “Here I was thinking you had been attacked or something, Jesus Gon.” 

Villains you can deal with. People with evil intentions hunting your best friend are a piece of cake. But a bad dream? What are you supposed to do about that? There’s nothing to fight, nothing definitive to dispel. Hell, you’ve been told practically since birth that bad dreams are nothing but a figment of your stupid imagination and a sign of weakness; you’ve not dealt with a nightmare since you were a child. 

“Yeah, but I’m feeling better. I’m sorry for waking Killua up,” Gon replies, still sounding a little shaken. You hear him shuffling on the other end like he’s about to hang up, and you realize you can’t let him do that. 

“Wait, hold on!” you practically shout into the phone. You don’t know what you’re doing but you know that friendship means helping the other person out when they’re feeling bad. You know Gon practically paid someone to punch him in the face when he came to get you from your family’s mansion, so you can’t just leave this alone. 

“I’ll come by, bring you a drink from the vending machine or something,” you finish sheepishly, kicking yourself for not having a better plan for stuff like this. 

There’s a pause, then, “No! Killua, it’s fine! I’m good.” 

You frown. 

“Nope, too late. I’m coming,” you say, putting on an air of nonchalance. You really don’t know if insisting is the way to go here, but you’ve never had to deal with something like this before so you’re just going with your gut. “Already got pants on, you’re dealing with me now.” 

A chuckle.

“Okay, Killua. I’ll leave the door unlocked for you,” Gon says lightly. You can hear the smile in his voice before he hangs up, but there’s something else there too. 

Now you’re left sitting there in the dark, no pants and no idea what you’re supposed to do next. Well, actually, you suppose you should get dressed and buy that drink, so that’s what you do. 

You stand in front of the vending machine, its glow completely outdone by the fluorescent lighting in this hallway. You punch in the number for a hot chocolate because you figure that’s what you’d like if it were you, and as it tumbles through the vending machine you wonder if this is normal. Do friends actually do this? Are you just going to make things weird if you show up in the dead of night with a damn hot drink in one hand and reassurances in the other?

You grab the warm can and move swiftly down the hall before you can change your mind and find yourself in front of Gon’s door in no time at all. You knock exactly three times because you saw it in a movie once and enter slowly. 

All the lights are off, but you can make out Gon’s figure sitting bolt upright in bed. 

“Room service,” you joke, holding up the can in the doorway. Immediately you think maybe a joke isn’t the right move and you close the door behind you with a wince. You’re really not good at this friends thing. “I don’t know if you like hot chocolate, but it sounded good. Comforting, even.” 

“Thank you, Killua,” Gon whispers through the darkness. Your eyes haven’t quite adjusted to the dark yet, so you pad slowly through the room, feeling around so you don’t slam into a wall or a fake plant. By the time you make it to Gon’s bedside, you can see a little better and you notice the bedsheets are jumbled and pillows have been tossed in every direction. Gon looks sweaty and uncomfortable but there he is, wrapped up in a corner of the comforter. 

You pop open the tab of the hot chocolate with a satisfying hiss and hand it over slowly before taking a seat on the floor beside the bed, leaning against the bedframe. You hear Gon taking a long, slow gulp from the hot chocolate and think maybe you picked the right option. Maybe this is normal for friends to do.

Gon is shuffling again and you lean your head back just in time to watch him slip down from the mattress to sit beside you, pulling the comforter down with him. It falls on your head, as expected, and you just wrap the extra around yourself because it feels right. And you’re kind of cold. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” you ask, suddenly remembering that you’re supposed to talk these things when your friend is feeling bad. The pause makes you think you’re wrong about this before Gon starts to articulate.

“I had a dream that you were being swallowed up by the ground,” he begins, cupping the hot chocolate in both his hands. “I kept trying to grab your hands and pull you out, but you just kept sinking and sinking. And you were screaming for me to help you and I couldn’t. All I could do was keep running toward you without closing any distance and you were disappearing. And then I started to sink too, and you just looked at me while we both sank into the ground and your eyes told me I’d failed you and you’d never forgive me. And then I woke up and you weren’t here, and I panicked and called you, I think. And then I heard your voice and it felt like I had finally woken up, and then I felt silly for the whole thing.” 

You’re surprised that you’re the protagonist of this nightmare. You know it was Gon’s own dream, yet somehow you feel responsible and your skin is crawling because you’ve hurt him. 

“You’re crazy if you think I’d let something stupid like the floor kill me,” you blurt out, uncomfortable and unsure of how to respond. You default to a joke because that’s what you do, and you know it was the wrong choice because you feel Gon stiffen up beside you and look away. 

“I know, it’s stupid,” he mumbles. “That’s why I told you not to bother, I’m sorry I woke you up.” He takes another sip from the hot chocolate.

No, no, no. This is all wrong. You’re supposed to be making him feel better, not worse. You need to think, Killua, because he needs you right now and you’re not delivering. Quick, what do friends do? 

You reach out your arm and slip it over his shoulders, pulling him as close as you can with the massive comforter bunching up between the two of you. 

“It’s fine, Gon. I’m sorry you had such a stressful dream, that must have been scary,” you force out, your head reeling and heart pounding so hard he can probably hear it with those freakish ears of his. 

You feel him relax against you and you finally feel like you did something right, so you just keep your arm where it is as he finishes his drink and hope he doesn’t find this strange. 

“I just felt so helpless, you know?” Gon whispers. “Like nothing I did could’ve helped you, and I think that’s what made it so bad.” 

You suck in a breath, “I think if we were ever in that situation that you’d get me out of it. I trust you.” 

You hear him giggle and press a little closer, “You know, Killua, this hot chocolate kind of sucks.” 

“Get your own damn drink next time,” you say with no real malice behind your words. “Figures Heaven’s Arena would have shitty drinks.”

He lets out a sigh and in no time at all, you feel he’s asleep. You know you can’t move now, and you also know that your back is going to be screaming about this in the morning if you don’t, but you decide to suck it up and let Gon sleep. 

You both wake up the next morning tangled up in each other and let out a funny laugh, blush, and scramble to get up. Gon smiles at you and you decide to spend the day training together, and everything feels right.

* * *

The next time it happens, you’re both asleep in Gon’s bed on Whale Island and you’re woken up by flailing appendages and muffled shouts. 

You don’t even remember having fallen asleep on his bed, but here you are with an elbow in your face, getting kicked in the side by your best friend. 

“Gon, Gon, wake up,” you say, reaching out to nudge his shoulder. You wish you could grab his wrists to keep him from hitting you, but you feel like that would just scare him more. He’s still asleep, though, eyes screwed shut and shouting something that sounds suspiciously like your name. 

You sit up in bed and try to think of an appropriate course of action. Last time he had woken up by himself, but this time you think if you leave him alone, he’ll likely end up hurting himself, or you. 

Against your better judgment, you decide to place yourself right on top of his flailing body and put both hands on his shoulder, shaking him gently to rouse him. 

Before you know what’s happening, he’s got a hand around your throat and his eyes are blown wide open. You freeze, unsure if he’s still dreaming or not but certain that if you move, it could be bad. 

“Gon,” you say slowly, “it’s me, Killua. You’re safe. We’re both safe on Whale Island. You can let go of me; I’m not going to hurt you.” Slowly, you see recognition flood through his features. 

“Killua?” he asks, confusion tinging his words. He suddenly sees his hand on your neck and flushes red, snatching his arm back toward himself. “Oh my god. I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” he blurts, words stringing together.

You suddenly realize you’re still on top of him and your cheeks bloom. That must’ve been weird for him too. 

“No, don’t worry about it,” you say, flopping down on the mattress beside him. “It’s my fault, I didn’t know how to wake you up any other way. I shouldn’t have done that.”

A thick silence spreads between you as Gon tries to catch his breath, looking at the hand that had been poised to choke you only moments before. 

“I could have hurt you,” he says weakly, turning to look you in the eye. “I promise I’ll never do that again.” 

Your chest tightens up, “Gon, seriously, you were having a bad dream. How were you supposed to know it was me? I’m fine, so don’t worry about it.” 

This time, you don’t have to ask what he was dreaming about because he launches into a frantic explanation. The two of you were on a mission; you had obtained your hunter license and were joining him on a job to find a precious artifact in some hidden ruins. You had been right there beside him as he reached for the golden orb you were looking for when all of a sudden you vanished and were replaced with mummies. Your brother was there, controlling them all with his needles, and he had you in his clutches and just out of Gon’s reach. He was trying to save you, but the mummies just kept coming and he watched as Illumi dragged you from the ruins, screaming for help and shouting his name. 

“I think I thought you were one of them, just now,” Gon added when he finished recounting the dream. “I think that’s why I grabbed you, I’m really sorry.” 

You’re starting to see a pattern forming between the two nightmares you’ve been present for. Your heart does a funny flop when you realize that all of Gon’s nightmares revolve around you, and you’re not sure if it’s because he thinks really highly of you as a friend or because you seem to be the root of all his anxiety. Does this mean you need to stick around or spare him the stress and leave him alone?

You feel Gon put some distance between the two of you as your brain is trying to catch up with all the details you’ve just uncovered, and it leaves you cold and uncomfortable.

“I understand if you don’t want to hang around me after this,” he says softly, rolling over on his back and staring at the ceiling. “You don’t deserve a friend who tries to kill you in his sleep.” 

You almost choke on your own spit at the mere thought of Gon leaving you and you realize just how foolish your most recent thought was. 

“What? Are you crazy?” you shout. “If you think you can get rid of me that easily, you’ve clearly lost it.” 

Gon’s head snaps back at you and you can see his eyes are burning with some emotion you can’t quite place. He looks like he’s about to cry but also like he’s about to punch you for real. 

“Killua, I’m a danger to you,” he says, voice shaking. 

“You’re still on edge from the nightmare, Gon. Let’s talk about this later once you’ve had a chance to calm down,” you say, trying to get him to relax. You hold up your arm and give him a chance to think about his next move. “This worked last time, come here.” 

He looks a little uncertain, but Gon scoots closer and lets you snake your arm under his neck like a pillow. The breath he lets out once he’s settled lets you know that he did need a little help to calm down, and though you don’t really understand how you’re both the thing to cause this stress and to dispel it, you won’t question it because you feel responsible either way. 

“Try to get some sleep,” you say as you fix the covers around the two of you, but you notice the words fall upon deaf ears. Gon is already asleep again and the urge to smooth out the crease in his brow with your thumb is almost too sudden and too great to suppress. 

When you talk about it later, Gon admits that your presence after a nightmare really does help him relax and that if you tried to be self-sacrificing and leave, he’d probably hunt you down and make you stay. 

When you remind him that he offered you an out, he splutters and tells you that’s entirely different, so you suppose that settles that and you unwittingly decide on a new, almost weekly routine which includes gently waking him up and offering him a space in your arms while you talk him down from his latest night terrors.

* * *

You thought you had the routine down. 

You thought the way to go was to gently prod his shoulder, call his name in the dark, and hold him close as he tells you about his latest nightmare. That was the tried and true method. 

But tonight, he’s not responding. Tonight, no matter how much you nudge him and whisper his name, he’s just not waking up. 

And this scares you because it’s been months and you’ve never encountered a nightmare this bad before. He’s tossing and turning, and you notice there are tears staining the pillow for the first time since you have started dealing with these dreams.

“Gon, please wake up,” you plead, reaching up to wipe the tears streaming down his face. This hurts you, you think, almost as much as it hurts him, and you feel useless because this is what you’re supposed to be good at these days and what kind of friend are you if you can’t keep his nightmares at bay?

He looks like he’s starting to relax under your touch, although he still hasn’t woken up, and it’s all you can do to place a gentle hand on his shoulder and tell him it’s alright. He hasn’t called out your name and you don’t have a clue as to what is going on inside his head, but you do know that he’s calming down, so you don’t pull your hands away.

You gently caress his face and whisper that he’s safe, that he’s in a bed in a hotel and not somewhere in NGL being hunted by freakish ants that look more like centipedes and cat people. You whisper to him that Kite must be alive somewhere, safe and hidden from the enemy while he bides his time and thinks of a plan to rejoin your group. You may not believe this, but you know Gon likes to cling to even the smallest shreds of hope, so you figure this is a safe comfort to provide. 

You continue with this for what seems like forever, but it seems you’re helping, and right now you want, more than anything, for Gon to be okay.

After a long while, Gon is still whimpering but the tears and the flailing have stopped so you pull him close like you always do and wait for the rest to pass. He turns and buries his face in your neck, and you feel yourself blush furiously, but you let it happen because he’s your friend and he’s seeking comfort. 

You stay like that for the rest of the night and you’re thankful that this seems to have occurred fairly close to the morning because you can’t seem to fall asleep no matter what you do. Gon’s presence is too much and his breath on your neck makes your chest ache in a way that confuses you, so you opt to stare holes in the ceiling rather than focus too closely on the way Gon is pressed against your side. 

You feel dirty, having such confused feelings. You’ve never given much thought to this relationship beyond Gon being your first-ever friend and you being his. Being Gon’s best friend has become easy for you over the years and never has the thought occurred to you that you of all people could be capable of developing other types of feelings. You’ve never experienced anything remotely close to love, except for maybe the way Illumi would stroke your hair after a particularly hard mission when you were a child, so you really aren’t sure of just what it is you’re feeling. 

Is this love? Or just some messed-up projection of the affection you were denied in your youth?

Either way, you decide that you need to stop taking advantage of Gon while he’s in such a vulnerable state. He needs you and you’re just using him to feed some empty hole in your heart left by years of a twisted and smothering form of love that your family was responsible for. 

You realize in the back of your mind, too, that you will be leaving him in a matter of days. As soon as he gets his nen back, you’re gone, and he’s going to have to deal with this on his own again.

Bisky’s words echo painfully through your head as the sun starts to peek through the blinds on the windows. You say a silent prayer for Gon to move away before he wakes up because you can’t find it in your heart to untangle him from yourself and you’d really prefer he initiates your eventual separation. It’s selfish, but you think if he were the one to halt these strange, nightmare-induced caresses, it would definitely hurt you a little less.

It seems, though, that your prayers go unanswered because Gon starts to stir as the sunlight reaches his eyelids and you hear a small groan as he lifts his head slowly from the crook of your neck.

“Killua?” he asks softly, unsure of if you are awake or not.

You turn to face him and try to keep your cheeks from flushing as his big brown eyes blink slowly in your direction. 

“Did I have another nightmare?” he continues, pressing a hand to the still-damp pillow he had abandoned. “I don’t remember a thing.” 

“You did,” you begin, unsure of how much detail you need to reveal. “It sounded really bad and it looked like you were crying. It stopped a while ago, though, so I guess it doesn’t matter that you don’t remember.” 

This feels wrong. It now feels even more like you took advantage of him in such a sensitive time, especially now that he’s woken in your arms without so much as a clue as to how he got there. Did you guess wrong? You suppose it’s feasible that he wasn’t actually having a nightmare at all and that you didn’t need to step in. 

“Well, thank you,” Gon replies, suddenly looking anywhere but you. And that’s when you know you really have overstepped, he’s uncomfortable. “I’m sorry to have been such a burden and then not even remember it.” 

You decide not to drag this out any longer, you want to spare him this discomfort and just move on. 

“You’re not a burden, Gon. It’s fine,” you say, truly meaning every word. You try for a joke next because you want to lighten the mood as quickly as possible, “I’d rather you calm down and let me sleep than have you freaking out and keeping me awake all night.” 

Gon smiles and runs a hand through his hair, “Yeah, but I’m still sorry Killua!” 

He suggests breakfast next, and you are grateful for the chance to just get out of that bed because you still feel guilty, and being at the scene of the crime is making everything worse.

Turning away as he undresses you think maybe it is best for you to leave him at the end of these 30 days, for his sake more so than your own. But even so, you need to keep him safe while he’s defenseless, and you’ll do anything to achieve that, including shoving whatever feelings you may have into a far corner of your heart.

* * *

Gon looks really small in that hospital bed with all those wires coming from his mangled, bandaged body. 

Even in a comatose state, you know his mind must be in turmoil. You saw what he did, you felt the power of the sacrifice he made. 

You asked the doctor if it was possible for people in a coma to have nightmares or to react in ways like crying or calling out. You were told by a man who looked down upon you that that was preposterous and that he wouldn’t be able to do any of that anyway given the condition his body is in. 

You consult the hunter website to confirm this and find that it is indeed possible for comatose patients to cry and react to outside stimulus, but that their brains are working at the lowest survival-mode possible. You make a mental note that you ought to look into that quack looking over your best friend. 

In your heart, you are positive he’s stuck in a nightmare, a never-ending replay of the things you’d seen in the past months, only in slow motion and each time more painful than the last. 

Watching him through the thick glass and plastic curtains that keep you from rushing to his side, you feel guilty again that you’re not able to help him. Your heart aches because of the state he’s in, obviously, but you hurt the most because you’ve failed him and this time you can’t hold him and stroke his cheeks until he wakes up. 

A vague idea forms in your head, a way to save him from himself and his inevitable fate. You need to get him out of this, because this is your most important job, and you realize, in that moment, that there is someone else you’ve been failing all your life. 

Your focus shifts and you start to feel more and more anxious as all of the guilt and regrets of your life seem to compound all at once. You’re not a good best friend and you’re not a good big brother. In order to start turning these things around, in order to make up for your shortcomings as a living human, you decide you need to make a call to your home. 

It’s not until you’re standing in that antiseptic-smelling room that you really come to terms with Gon’s choices all those weeks ago. You reach down to hold his hand, which really looks like it could crumble off at any minute, and let a tear escape down your cheek. You know this was his choice and you know there wasn’t much you could’ve done, but you feel you should’ve tried harder, should’ve forced him to ask you for help rather than stand by and watch as he took his own life to avenge another. But you don’t have time to dwell on that for now, you and your sisters came here with a specific purpose, and you’re about to fix everything again like you’re supposed to. 

Gon waking up and immediately insisting he needs to go and find Ging only hurts you a little, so you let him go and pull Nanika into a hug and thank her before she goes to sleep again. You’ve managed to dispel another nightmare, if even with a little help, and you feel relieved that you were able to do your duty as Gon’s best friend. The weight of bringing Gon back from a death he chose is a heavy one, but you suppose you’ll talk it over when the time is right.

* * *

It’s your last night together for a long time, so you think it’s fitting that you need to save Gon from his darkness one last time. 

You still feel weird about where you stand, ever since that morning when you realized you might be capable of loving him, but by this point, you’ve managed to accept it and have pushed it down as much as you can, for his sake almost as much as yours. You know you won’t be able to do this forever, so just this once you allow yourself to feel everything as you glance at your best friend’s furrowed brow. One last time, for old time’s sake. 

“Gon,” you whisper gently, reaching out and running a hand down his arm. Tonight, he wakes almost immediately, unshed tears gleaming in the moonlight when he opens his eyes. “Bad dream again,” you say, as if he wasn’t already aware. 

He sits back on his pillow and the headboard, making room for you to scoot over so you can talk without disturbing Alluka, who had fallen asleep somewhere around your legs. 

You come to him, like you always do, arms open and heart pounding. You don’t think you’ll ever get used to this feeling, but you suppose that after tonight it won’t matter anymore. You don’t know when you’ll see your best friend again, but by the time you do, he will have probably found someone to replace you as his dream-keeper and night watchman. 

Gon puts his head on your chest and wraps his arms around your waist and you try to memorize this feeling, warm and comfortable and perfect. Except it’s not perfect, because he’s holding you too tight and suddenly, he’s shaking, and your shirt feels wet. 

“Oi, what’s the matter?” you ask softly, looking down at him. You can’t decipher what he says because he’s quietly sobbing now and speaking directly into your chest and you don’t know what to do about this because it’s all you can do to keep yourself from crying with him. So, you repeat your question.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he finally wails, looking up at you with eyes that are impossibly big and shining. You both chance a glance in Alluka’s direction, hoping Gon’s sudden outburst didn’t wake her. When she lets out a soft puff of air you know you’re clear, but now you have a bigger issue to deal with. 

“What do you mean, Gon? Isn’t this what you’ve been working towards since before we even met?” Your heart feels like it’s being ripped right out of your body and you know you need to calm him down before he makes a rash decision, but right now you really just want Gon to stop crying and tell you about his nightmare because you’d rather focus on that than the reality you’ll both have to face in the morning. “Why don’t you tell me about your dream?”

Gon rubs his face into your shirt, undoubtedly spreading tears and snot all over your clean white shirt, but you don’t mind because he’s your friend and this time you’re both seeking comfort.

“I was dreaming about you saying goodbye to me tomorrow,” comes the muffled reply as he tightens his grip further. “I know I need to do this, and I know I can’t drag you along with me anymore, but I wish we could continue our adventures together.” 

_Together._

You knew this was coming, you knew in the back of your mind that there would always be the possibility of him asking you to come with him or at least entertaining the idea for a moment. But you have another responsibility now, another person to live for, and you both have your own, separate goals. 

“You know I would come with you in a heartbeat if I could,” you whisper, staring straight ahead because you know if you look down, you’ll drown in those dark brown eyes and find a way to follow him. “But we need this, this is a really big moment for us.” 

You know he knows this but repeating it out loud is almost enough to make it feel like it won’t hurt as much tomorrow morning when you look into his eyes one last time and say the one word you’ve yet to say to him—goodbye. 

He still hasn’t apologized to you for what he said to you that night, but you remember you haven’t apologized for bringing him back into this world when he’d given up on it yet either, and it’s okay for now that you’re both avoiding the subject. Maybe the weight of both apologies hasn’t hit you yet or maybe you think it just doesn’t matter right now, but all you really want is for Gon to tell you he’ll come find you when he’s reached all his goals so you can stay together forever. 

“What am I going to do without you?” Gon asks with a shuddery breath, looking up and locking eyes with you in the moonlight. You know he’s asking a broad question; he wants to know what he’ll do without you in every aspect of his existence. You’ve been as much of a constant in his life as he’s been in yours, and suddenly you wonder just what _you’ll_ do without _him_. 

“You can call me when you have a nightmare,” you respond, avoiding the grander situation at hand. “You know I’ll always pick up, no matter what ungodly hour it is.” Gon lets out a wet giggle and you’re thankful he settles for that answer because you’re not ready to reveal to him how you feel and how much this really hurts. 

“Will you wait for me?” are the next words that Gon whispers into the darkness, almost too quiet for you to hear. A beat passes as you process the request before he adds, “I know it's really unfair of me to ask you that, Killua, but will you please wait for me?” 

“No,” you reply decidedly. “You’re going to have to find me, Gon.” 

You know in your bones that if you keep waiting for Gon to decide he’s ready, to decide he wants you above all else, that you’ll wither away. You need to focus on yourself and focus on Alluka before you can even think about giving in to another one of Gon’s impossible requests.

It’s really kind of surprising, you think, that you were able to say that to him after all this time. You hope you haven’t offended him, or hurt him, but you can’t keep giving him everything you have as he chases his own dreams. 

You think it might be a little spiteful for you to think this way, after all, you’re just kids and you’ve gone through so much more pain these last few months than anyone should ever have to face in a lifetime. Gon, especially after having lost the only person who made him feel connected to his father, deserves a little grace for the way he had become during the fight with the ants. But then again, you think, so do you. 

“I will,” Gon says, pulling you from your thoughts. “I’ll find you and prove to you that we’re meant to stick together. I promise.” 

You spend the rest of the night whispering in the darkness, Gon’s head on your chest and your heart heavy. You’re both willing time to slow down and allow you a few more precious moments together before you part for who knows how long, each hoping the other will say something to confirm the warmth that hangs between you. 

The goodbye you share the next morning is brief. Both of you are painfully aware that neither wants what is coming, but that if you drag this out, you’ll never be able to let each other go. So you cradle his hand in yours as he promises to call and write, and you nod and smile despite the ache in your chest, squeezing his fingers before he turns and jogs toward the World Tree. 

It only hurts a little that he doesn’t turn back, but your sisters hold your hand now and you don’t feel quite as empty as you were expecting to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yahoo!! Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you have enjoyed this so far!!!
> 
> I went a little homestuck on ya'll with the second person perspective lmao I am so sorry about that I hope it wasn't too distracting. 
> 
> The following chapter will be a short conclusion for the 5+1 things, but this can also be considered an ending if you prefer. Hoping to have the next chapter up soon even though I can't conclude anything for the life of me!!!!! 
> 
> Thank you again for reading this far, it really means a lot :')


	2. Chapter 2

You’re running through a fog. 

Your best friend is keeping pace beside you and you can hear his laughter ringing out like a wind chime in the breeze, gentle and soft and soothing. 

You’re both running through a fog and it’s strange that you feel so at ease, but the presence of your best friend turns off any alarms that should be sounding in your head, and your heart is full, and it feels like you’re among the clouds rather than down on earth. 

His laughter begins to fade, though, and you start to feel that something is terribly wrong. You look to your left, where he had just been beside you, and find you can’t see the faint outline of your best friend’s body through the thick mist.

You’re no longer running, just standing in a cloud of uncertainty as panic rises up like a wave inside you and threatens to spill out if you don’t find Killua soon. 

You try to call out his name, frantic and unsure of what happened, where he went, but your voice gets stuck in your throat. You scream and you shout but nothing comes out and those familiar feelings of helplessness and abandonment begin to surface from a place rooted deep in your childhood.

Electricity starts to prick your skin and make your hair stand on end and it feels like something is about to happen. The air is charged with static as you look around, trying to make sense of the moment, and just _where is Killua?_ The moment his name sounds in your head, you see flashes lighting up the fog, and a silhouette in the distance. You know deep in your core the only person that could be, it’s almost as if you’ve conjured him with your thoughts. 

“I’m all alone,” comes a voice, his voice, through the silence, distorted and drenched with sadness. “You’ve left me, Gon, you’ve abandoned me.” 

The static around you is building and building and your heart drops the moment Killua calls out to you because, no, you didn’t abandon him! You distinctly remember that night in bed before you parted when he told you that you needed to spend some time apart. You remember the pain of walking away from him, but he let you go, and you let him go, and that was that. 

_“You don’t understand,”_ you want to say. You want to tell him that he’s got it wrong, that you’ll come back to him as soon as you’re able, but it feels like you’re about to throw up and the fog is suffocating and you can’t find your words.

“Did you even love me at all?” Killua’s shadow calls out, flickering with lightning, like a bulb that’s about to go out. “You never told me, you never said.” 

Of course, of course you loved him. You still do, despite the distance between you and your misaligned goals. You didn’t think it needed to be said, but you realize maybe it was all in your head, the gentle caresses and stolen glances. You need to tell him, you need to let him know, but you can’t and it’s agony and his voice sounds so, so sad. 

“It hurts, Gon,” he continues, “you’re hurting me.”

No. 

“You’re killing me, Gon. I wish we had never met; I wish you had never—” 

You’re awake. Thank god, you’re awake. 

There’s sweat dripping down your body and the sheets are stuck to your skin, but you’re awake and that was just a dream and Killua would never say those terrible things to you in the waking world. 

The glow of the moon pouring through the window illuminates your cellphone on the nightstand and you tentatively pick it up to scroll through your contacts for Killua’s number. You feel weak and cowardly resorting to this so soon, but he told you he’d pick up if you needed him and right now you really, really need him. You need to hear his voice and assure yourself that the thick veil of sadness you had heard smothering his words isn’t real. 

The line rings thrice before you’re instructed to leave a message and your heart drops ever so slightly because _he said._ But you sigh and hang up anyway without leaving a message, you figure maybe it’s for the best that he doesn’t pick up right now because you might end up saying something you’ll regret. 

You’re about to wrap yourself back up in the sheets to wallow in your own melancholy, but your cellphone is ringing, and your heart is soaring because, thank god, Killua is calling you back. 

“Killua!” you shout into the phone, springing up in bed. 

“That was quick,” he responds, voice crackly through the phone. “Bad dream?” 

You make a sound of affirmation and he begins speaking again, softly, “I’m sorry I didn’t pick up right away, Alluka was showing me some stuff she and Nanika bought today. Looks like we’re in a different time zone.”

“Where are you?” you ask tentatively, unsure if you want to know or if he would even want to tell you. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Killua retorts, and you can hear the sarcasm dripping from his words. “That’s cheating, you know. You’ll have to come find me with no hints.”

A pause, and then, “Don’t you want to tell me about your dream?” 

Oh, yeah. You called him for a reason. 

“Not really,” you begin, suddenly quite nervous. “I just wanted to hear your voice; I really miss you.” 

Your heart is pounding and the sheets are rustling as your leg matches your heart’s rhythm, and you pray he doesn’t hear either through the phone, but it’s all you can really do to keep yourself from pouring your heart out to him right here and now. It’s not fair, you remind yourself, to confess to him right now, to put him on the spot with so many miles between you. 

“Really, Gon,” Killua sighs into the phone. “You can’t just call me and then not tell me why, I think that breaks some sort of telephone rule or something. Plus, I’m a little rusty from not being with you all the time now so I’m going to need some direction if you want me to help you.”

Hearing him acknowledge that he might miss you, even if it’s not in so many words, is enough to make you reconsider. You decide to explain, in the vaguest of terms, what you saw, so that he can understand and rescue you from this darkness like he always does. 

“It was really foggy, and you and I were running together until you disappeared,” you whisper into your phone, suddenly sweaty again and unsure of how you’re going to explain this to him without making it weird. 

Giving it some more thought, though, you almost find yourself not caring, and the line between fog Killua and real Killua is blurring with each passing second. You need to let real Killua know that all those things that fog Killua said were nonsense, and you need to confirm that you aren’t causing him any pain because you think you’d rather be dead than be the reason for your best friend’s distress.

A quiet hum from the other end of the line pulls you back to reality and you figure real Killua might be getting impatient with you, and it’s really the last thing you want for him to be cross with you when you just woke up from that horrible dream. 

“Killua was telling me that I abandoned him and that I didn’t love him and I couldn’t speak and tell you that you were wrong,” you start again, anxiety gnawing at the back of your skull telling you to shut up, shut up, shut up. 

“I woke up right after you told me that I was hurting you and that you wish we had never met… Do you really think that?” That was unfair to ask, and you know it, but you’re too on edge right now to really find the midpoint between what you dreamt and what is reality.

You almost don’t even want to process what you said directly before this because you’re afraid of what Killua might say back to you now that you’ve indirectly admitted you have feelings for him like that, but your stomach is in knots and it’s all you can think about. 

The silence on the other end seems to confirm your worst fears, that Killua could never reciprocate, and that you’re a nuisance and a burden, and really this time apart is going to serve as the thing that severs your friendship and leaves you alone again. Obviously, you’ve made up everything that indicated to you that he might feel the same way, and now you’re unsure of what hurts more: your nightmares or your reality. 

You’re certain of one thing, though, and it’s that you don’t want to be alone again. 

“Gon,” Killua breathes into the receiver, calm and measured and slow. “I need you to take some breaths for me Gon, you’re freaking out.” 

“Killua, I didn’t abandon you,” you blurt out frantically. “I would never, I could never. Please, don’t leave me alone.” Your eyes are burning, and your throat is closing up, but you don’t want to be alone and you desperately need Killua to know that. You don’t think you could survive being abandoned a second time in your life, especially not by someone as important to you as your best friend. 

Suddenly you feel a jolt from your cellphone and you yelp in pain as you do your best not to throw the thing across the room.

“Wait, that worked?” you hear Killua exclaim, and you ask him what he did because that hurt but he’s not here. “I sent you a little shock through the phone, Gon, you’re seriously spiraling and I need you to listen to me right now.” 

You swallow thickly and you can’t believe he did that, but it worked and you’re breathing again so you suppose you don’t mind. Besides, it’s like you felt him through the phone and that sends a different sort of electricity running through your body. 

“First of all, I need you to understand that whatever I said to you in your dream is not an accurate representation of the way I feel,” Killua begins. “That wasn’t me.” 

Relief washes over you, thank goodness. 

“Second, I really had hoped that by this point you would understand that meeting you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he continues. “You pulled me out of my worst possible nightmare: living at the estate, controlled by my brother, murdering innocent people because I was told it was my job. If I could go back and do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing, Gon. I will always choose you.” 

There’s a moment of pause before he finishes, “And I do love you, Gon. I didn’t think I would ever say those words to you, but I also didn’t think that you would ever say them to me.” 

For a moment, your eyes stop working and you’re focusing all your energy on listening to Killua, because there’s no way you just heard him right. Did he say…?

“Can, can you say that again?” you whisper, voice quivering and heart hammering away in your chest. 

“I said I… I said I love you,” Killua repeats, voice soft and a little nervous. 

So you did hear him right. 

“Good,” you respond, suddenly feeling much better. It’s almost as if the nightmare never happened, even though it is entirely responsible for this whole conversation. You don’t really know what else to say because you’re so, so happy and the nightmare is gone and there’s really no other reason to stay on the phone. 

“Is that—” his voice cuts through the silence, “Are you okay? Do you want me to hang up?”

“No that’s not it!” you shout. “Can I call you back in the morning? Can you tell me you love me again in the morning?”

You hear him splutter through the static of the phone, “Gon! Seriously, you can’t say stuff like that to me.” 

“But can you?” you ask, nervous that he’ll take back his words at any moment and leave you to fend off your demons on your own. 

“Sure,” comes his reply, his voice soft again but this time more tender than anything else. “Yeah, I can do that, I guess.” 

You sigh and thank him before hanging up, wishing him a good rest of his day with all the sincerity in your heart. 

When you call him again in the morning and hear Killua’s tired mumbling, you remember the different time zones and find yourself beginning to apologize. When you hear him mumble in that perfect, half-asleep voice that he loves you, you freeze and your heart swells. You tell him you love him too before letting him dissolve back into his dreams which are no doubt filled with chocolate and hopefully filled with you, and you know now that wherever you are, Killua will always be there to save you. 

That feels good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reaching the end! 
> 
> I can't end anything for the life of me, so for those of you who were waiting on this, thank you for your patience and I'm sorry this is all you get for your troubles :')
> 
> Feel free to find me on tumblr [@clood](https://clood.tumblr.com/) and scream about these boys (or anything)!! 
> 
> p.s. I used to be @claudiawastaken on tumblr (in case there's the off chance that anyone may be confused by that lol)


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